We are going on a family cruise in April 2008 (Western Carribean). Any opinions and suggestions will be great. We are 3 families traveling together. With kids and grandparents. We hope this will be lots of fun for the kids and some peace for the grandparents (at times), they love playing with the grandkids.

We are going on a family cruise in April 2008 (Western Carribean). Any opinions and suggestions will be great. We are 3 families traveling together. With kids and grandparents. We hope this will be lots of fun for the kids and some peace for the grandparents (at times), they love playing with the grandkids.

Hi mommysheryl, welcome to Cruise-Chat. The FOS is a beautiful ship with plenty to do for both young and old. They have a children's program for kids of all ages that your children will enjoy. There is the spa, the pools, the fitness center, restaurants, etc. for the adults to enjoy. Is there something in particular you would like to know about? You're in for a wonderful vacation. Please look around on our board, The Caribbean Port Chat section is full of ideas for excursions. You can use your find feature, in the upper left hand corner of your post and type in Freedom of the Seas or a particular port or topic you are interested in and it will pull up all the posts that pertain to your search catagory. Hope you have a wonderful cruise and once again, welcome aboard!

other questions we have are:
is the water onboard tasty enough for drinking? or can bottled water be purchased?
what is a beverage card that can be purchased and for how much?
where do you go to get tickets for the ice show?

The water is just fine. You can purchase bottled water, but there is no reason for it. They have their own filtration system on board and the water out of the taps is better than the bottled water. The beverage card is for sodas, whether it's worth it or not depends on how much soda you drink. Lots of people swear by it, some say it's a waste of money. It's around $60/week. You get your tickets for the ice show on board, it will be posted in your paper that you receive in your room daily. SonnyV is our resident Royal Caribbean expert, so he will be able to tell you exactly.

Look at this page for the current soft drink package info. Note that adult packages cost more than the kid's package. Also - the rule is one person per package. No sharing. They control this by putting a sticker on the person's cruise card when they buy a soda package. The card has to be shown in order to get a glass of beverage.